Among the tiny umbrella-like coprinoid mushrooms found in grass or wood chips, Parasola auricoma is distinct through a combination of macro- and microscopic features. When young, its rusty brown to orange-brown cap lacks woolly or scaly veil remnants--and as the cap matures, developing grayish, umbrella-like striations, the center area remains smooth and orangish brown. Under the microscope, Parasola auricoma features fairly large, ellipsoid spores and a cap surface adorned with very long, reddish brown hairs.

Description:

Ecology: Saprobic; growing scattered or gregariously on soil, in grass, or (more frequently) in wood chips; early summer, and sometimes again in fall (and over winter in warmer climates); widely distributed in North America.

Cap: 10-60 mm across at maturity; egg-shaped at first, becoming convex or slightly conic, then nearly flat; bald to the naked eye (but finely hairy with a hand lens); becoming deeply grooved from the margin nearly to the center; orangish brown when young, becoming grayish in the grooves; without veil remnants.

Gills: Free from the stem or nearly so; close or nearly distant; whitish at first, becoming dark gray and eventually black.

Stem: 35-120 mm long; up to 3 mm thick; more or less equal; fragile; hollow; bald or very finely silky; whitish to yellowish; without a ring.